Mexico City lawmakers voted to legalize abortion Tuesday, a decision likely to influence policies and health practices across Mexico and other parts of heavily Roman Catholic Latin America.The proposal, approved 46-19, with one abstention, will take effect with the expected signing by the city's leftist mayor. Abortion opponents have already vowed to appeal the law to the Supreme Court, a move likely to extend the bitter and emotional debate in this predominantly Catholic nation."Decriminalizing abortion is a historic triumph -- a triumph of the left," said city legislator Jorge Diaz Cuervo, a social democrat who voted for the bill. "Today, there is a new atmosphere in this city. It is the atmosphere of freedom."Nationally, Mexico allows abortion only in cases of rape, severe birth defects or if the woman's life is at risk. Doctors sometimes refuse to perform the procedure even under those circumstances.... http://www.cnn.com

Property taxes will keep rising nearly everywhere for homeowners even as house prices are falling in many parts of the country, according to a USA TODAY analysis of government data. A key reason: Despite the downturn, the market value of millions of homes still exceeds their assessed value used for tax purposes. "Some people are irritated to learn the news," says Jim Todora, a property tax assessor in Sarasota County, Fla. "Their home's value may have gone down, but their property tax is still going up."Fresh evidence of the slumping real estate market came Tuesday when the National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes dropped in March at the highest rate in 18 years. Property tax limits were passed to prevent big increases during times of soaring home values. Those laws let assessments rise, slowly but steadily, until they reach market value. ...http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2007-04-24-property-tax_N.htm?csp=34

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who has been confined to a wheelchair for most of his adult life, expects weightlessness to feel like "bliss" when he goes on a "zero-gravity" flight Thursday aboard a refitted jet. "For someone like me whose muscles don't work very well, it will be bliss to be weightless," Hawking told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday. Hawking, 65, who has Lou Gehrig's disease, will be the first person with a disability to fly on the one of the flights offered by Zero Gravity Corp., a space tourism company. Flying from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., the jet creates the experience of microgravity in 25-second bursts of steep plunges over the Atlantic Ocean. Normally, the plane conducts 10 to 15 plunges for its passengers who pay $3,750 for the ride, although that fee has been waived for Hawking....http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=3075989

Virginia's governor said Tuesday he may be able to close the loophole that allowed Seung Hui Cho to buy the guns he used to kill 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus.In 2005, a court had ordered psychiatric counseling for Cho after determining he presented a danger to himself. But because he was never committed to a mental hospital, that order never appeared in the background check database that gun dealers are required to check before selling a firearm. Gov. Timothy Kaine said in a radio interview Tuesday that an executive order might be able to tighten that reporting requirement. We have over twenty thousand unconstitutional gun laws, and they think adding more would stop something like this? We have over eight million laws, has that stopped crime? Our prisons are full and we have more Americans in jail than any other country in the world, has that worked? It’s now imposable to live a normal life without breaking laws. And they still want more...http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-23-cho-records_N.htm?csp=34

Pat Tillman's brother accused the military Tuesday of ``intentional falsehoods'' and ``deliberate and careful misrepresentations'' in portraying the football star's death in Afghanistan as the result of heroic engagement with the enemy instead of friendly fire. ``We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family but more importantly the American public,'' Kevin Tillman told a hearing of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. ``Pat's death was clearly the result of fratricide,'' he said. ``Revealing that Pat's death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster in a month of political disasters ... so the truth needed to be suppressed,'' said Tillman, who was in a convoy behind his brother when the incident happened three years ago but didn't see it. He said the Tillman family has sought for years to get at the truth about Pat Tillman's death. ...http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6582941,00.html

A British man celebrated his 100th birthday with 25,000 pounds ($50,000) in winnings on Tuesday after he beat the bookmakers with a wager that he would live for a century.Alec Holden, from Epsom, south west of London, had placed a 100 pound bet with bookmaker William Hill almost 10 years ago that he would live to be 100 years old.The retired engineer said a daily diet of porridge and playing chess was the key to his longevity -- as was remembering to keep breathing....http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/04/24/britain.bet.reut/index.html?eref=rss_world